1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to Event Management Systems (EMSs) and, more particularly, to a method of dynamically adapting an EMS to interface with external devices.
2. Description of Related Art
An Event Management System (EMS), or more specifically an alarm management system, is a surveillance system commonly used to monitor networks such as telecommunications networks, utility networks, fleet (vehicle) location systems, and property (building) intrusion systems, among others. Elements under surveillance, such as a computer, a switch, a particular network path or route, a port, or a trap door are monitored for events or fault conditions. Once detected, an event or alarm is sent towards a central location for display, logging, and/or event correlation. The EMS is typically required to interface with a wide variety of external devices, each of which may have its own proprietary communications protocol and content type. A number of viewing devices capable of displaying specific event formats from various external devices emitting events may also be required.
With the current state of the art, EMS developers are required to create numerous device handlers capable of handling specific classes of external devices that use specific protocols and specific event formats, and to integrate the device handlers with the core EMS. In addition, numerous viewing device handlers capable of displaying specific event formats must be created. Adapting the core EMS to interface with a variety of external devices and viewing devices is a non-trivial and time-consuming task. There are potentially very large numbers of external devices (and their corresponding viewing devices) with which an EMS may be required to interface, each of which requires time and effort by the EMS developer to develop an interface. Thus, implementation of these handlers in the core EMS requires significant effort by the EMS developer and places responsibility for integrating the EMS with external devices and viewing devices firmly on the shoulders of the EMS developer.
Upgrades to viewers (displays) are also a concern. Existing users find it advantageous to continue to use the same viewer to view events from newly added external devices, rather than having a separate viewer for each external device. In one proposed solution, whenever a new class of external devices is added to the EMS, all viewers are upgraded to include new algorithms for display of new event formats associated with the new external devices. However, the distribution of new versions of viewers to users who may not be interested in receiving events from the newly added class of external devices is expensive and wasteful. In addition, the accumulation of new display algorithms to accommodate the ever expanding list of new external device classes makes the viewer footprint too large, and is not suitable to support the thin-client concept, a requirement for a WEB-enabled environment.
Although there are no known prior art teachings of a solution to the aforementioned deficiency and shortcoming such as that disclosed herein, PCT Patent Application WO 95/08794 by Gilbert et al. (Gilbert) discusses subject matter that bears some relation to matters discussed herein. Gilbert discloses a management system that allows for the separation between a logical, external view of a network manager and a physical, internal view of a communication device installed in the network. A management agent is implemented in the communication device for each network manager with which the device interfaces. A data model in a relational database allows the management agent, on behalf of the network manager and the communication device's configuration managers, to map each other's specific data to a normalized view of the communication device. This manager/agent system is adaptable to the communication device's changing requirements and complex data modeling environment.
However, Gilbert requires the implementation of a management agent in the communication device for each network manager with which the device interfaces. In addition, the management agent must be made to interface with the relational database. The requirement to implement an agent for each network manager is a time-consuming task which requires significant effort by the developer.
Review of the foregoing reference reveals no disclosure or suggestion of a system or method such as that described and claimed herein. In order to overcome the disadvantage of existing solutions, it would be advantageous to have an Event Management System (EMS) for logging and correlating alarm events in a network, and a method of efficiently and dynamically integrating the EMS with external devices and external viewers.